“Charles Hodge?” asked the young officer.
“Aye, Charlie Hodge. You write and ask un if he knows old Sam Gates.”
The two officers looked at each other, and the older one looked at Sam more closely.
“It’s very extraordinary,” he remarked.
“Everybody knows Charlie Hodge,” added the young officer.
It was at that moment that a wave of genius swept over old Sam. He put his hand to his head, and suddenly jerked out:
“What’s more, I can tell ’ee where this yere Paul is. He’s actin’ a gardener in a convent at—” He puckered up his brows, fumbled with his hat, and then got out, “Mighteno.”
The older officer gasped.
“Mailleton-en-haut! Good God! what makes you say that, old man?”
Sam tried to give an account of his experience and the things he had heard said by the German officers; but he was getting tired, and he broke off in the middle to say: